John Wadham

Sir John Wadham (c.1344–1412) was a Justice of the Common Pleas from 1389 to 1398, during the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), selected by the King as an assertion of his right to rule by the advice of men appointed of his own choice, and one of the many Devonians of the period described by Thomas Fuller in his Worthies of England, as seemingly "innated with a genius to study law".

John Wadham 'the judge' was one of John Prince's Worthies of Devon: "All I have met with him further, is this encomium," says the Devonshire biographer, "that being free of speech, he mingled it well with discretion; so that he never touched any man how mean so ever out of order, either for sport or spight; but with alacrity of spirit and soundness of understanding managed all his proceedings.

In his will, dated 12 March 1411, he includes money to be expended on "prayers for the soul of Richard Brankescombe", Sheriff of Devon from 1359 to 1361, who may have been an early mentor, and he is first recorded in 1367 as an attorney at Westminster.

[1] In 1383, he was made Serjeant-at-Law and in 1384 he was given a livery by Edward de Courtenay, 3rd Earl of Devon for his services as legal counsel.

[citation needed] When, in May 1398, he was discharged from the bench he received the grant of a pension from the assizes of Somerset and Dorset 'for good service'.